Fatal Error, page 6
She took a deep breath. “All right. That picture kept nagging me.”
“What picture?”
“The man at the airport.”
“Which man? Don’t tell me you’re holding out on me.”
“No! The pictures I gave Vanelli. The man who took the luggage.”
“You’re searching for him? I told you to keep out of the enforce—”
“I’m sticking to my half of the bargain. Investigative journalism. I called in at the offices of the Foto Oggi magazine. They’re searching their image banks.”
“Jess! The man in your picture might be completely innocent, and now you’ve just fingered him to some magazine.”
“I didn’t tell them why I wanted to know his identity.”
“They’re a tabloid magazine, and you just hung a giant question mark over his head.”
“It could be important.”
“Which is why the carabinieri are searching their databases, too. And they don’t need the help of some trashy magazine.”
Jess frowned. She certainly agreed with the trashy tag.
Morris sighed. “Jess. I didn’t mean it like that. I have the greatest respect for you. You know that. But you have to be careful. Some of the worst people are involved in this.”
“It was one picture. At a magazine. How’s anyone going to know? The Grantlys want their son back. I promised to help, Morris.”
He sighed. Twice. “Can I meet you at your hotel?”
“Why?”
“Can I meet you at the hotel?”
“Why? What can’t you tell me on the phone?”
“There’s something you need to see.”
She looked at Romeo and the running motorbike. “All right. See you in ten minutes.”
CHAPTER TEN
Romeo parked the bike at the rear of the hotel. Jess apologized and thanked him and rushed through the lobby to stand on the curb in front.
Morris arrived in a taxi a few minutes later. He opened the rear door. “Get in.”
“Nice to see you, too.” She settled next to him. “Where are we going?”
Morris grunted, and gave the driver an address.
“So, has Vanelli caught up with Ficarra? Interviewed him?” She raised her eyebrows. “Shot him, maybe?”
“Nothing like that. There’s no sign of him. His wife claims he’s away on business.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. What about surveillance?”
“There’s a process. Vanelli’s working through it. Soon.”
“Can’t he just put a man on his tail?”
Morris laughed. “My first suggestion, but apparently there was a big case a couple of years ago where a well-known Mafia boss sued the carabinieri because they did just that. Walked away with a good chunk of money.”
“It’s not right.”
Morris nodded.
The car came to a halt at an intersection. People crossed the road, walking every which way around the car.
“I need to call Harriet,” Jess said.
“Why?”
“They deserve to know what’s going on. I promised her I’d get her son back, and—”
Morris held up his hand. “All taken care of. The local field office is going to call round every day until we have him on a plane home.”
She sighed with relief. It was probably better the Grantlys got their information in person rather than over an international phone line. They were the sort of people who put stock in the personal touch.
They sat in silence as the taxi inched, raced, and honked its way through traffic, finally coming to a stop outside the 300-year-old Palazzo Margherita, a huge pink building housing the American Embassy.
Jess frowned at Morris. He ignored her, paid the driver, and got out. He walked along the front sidewalk, outside the iron fences that surrounded the grand building, and past the guarded front gate.
She raced to keep up. “You’re not going to use the front door?”
He shook his head. “We’re not going here.”
He crossed the road, and turned into a narrow walkway between two tall buildings. They came to an intersection with a second walkway. He turned right, and right again at the next intersection.
Jess walked fast and ran faster, but she was a foot shorter than Morris. Longer legs were an asset in any speed race. “You just wanted to show me the mazes of Rome?”
He shook his head. “Making sure we don’t have a tail.”
She looked behind her. The shadow-filled alleyway became instantly less appealing.
Morris knocked on a door. An angry buzz and the door opened, first a fraction and then wider. He walked ahead of her into a narrow hallway. A second closed door directly in front of them stopped all progress. Scuff marks covered dull white walls, and a camera was mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
Jess frowned. “What is this place?”
“Field office.”
“You’re kidding.” She looked at the dirty walls and the empty room. “Don’t you guys have a place in the embassy?”
“A public office, yes. This is the business office.”
“Business?”
“I’m sure you can guess. And I wouldn’t be bringing you here if I thought there was any other way to get through to you.” He glowered at her. “Everything here is off the record. Permanently. Nothing you see or hear in this building goes into your magazine. Ever. Understand?”
She blew out a long breath. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Jess. You’ll understand why in a minute.”
She looked him in the eye, and nodded.
The second door buzzed open.
They walked into what might have been a Victorian-era home. Thick paint covered the woodwork, and paisley wallpaper adorned the walls. Stairs ran upwards, and several doors led off the corridor.
A middle-aged woman poked her head out of the first doorway. Behind her, boxes were piled on the floor. “You’re late.”
Morris shrugged. “We—”
“Never mind.” She pointed up the stairs. “He’s waiting. Second door on the left.” She disappeared back into her room, closing the door behind her.
Jess followed Morris up the stairs. She tapped on the florid wallpaper. “Nice.”
He stopped at the top of the steps. “This isn’t a good time for jokes, Jess.”
She nodded. “I hear you.”
He knocked on the second door on the left, and walked in without waiting for an invitation.
The room was L-shaped, a desk at one end, a table at the other, and a narrow walkway between the two, marked by boxes of files. The wallpaper had seen better days, and the once-white paintwork was tinged an aged yellow. Heavy drapes blocked the daylight, and an underpowered bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling strained to push back the gloom.
Behind the desk, a balding man with square shoulders was hunched over a blizzard of paper. A computer with the keyboard balanced on top of the monitor was perched on the very edge of the desk. His lamp was the brightest light in the room. He switched it off. “Please sit down.”
Morris pointed Jess to a chair in front of the desk, and stood by the drapes. She sat. The man had a square jaw to go with his square shoulders. In earlier years, he’d have been handsome, now he wore the signs of a hard life. His eyeglasses looked like wayfarers, and the corner of his mouth was twisted up on one side.
“Miss Kimball…” He breathed in, long and slow.
She lost patience waiting for him to finish his sentence. “Yes?”
He flicked a switch, and a projector illuminated the wall behind him. He turned his back on Jess.
A grainy photograph of two people in trench coats appeared. They were walking along the edge of a country road. The picture had clearly been taken from a great distance.
“The Ficarras,” said the man.
Jess took a deep breath. “Wait a minute. Who are you?”
The man slouched down in his chair, keeping out of the projector’s beam. “Can you see well enough?”
“Yes. But who are you?” She looked at Morris.
“Call me Ahab, if you must call me something. He, too, was a man who chased an impossible fiend.”
“Very funny.” Jess glared at him. Ahab wasn’t his name and he had no good reason to lie about such an easily discovered fact. He offered no further reply. “What is this?”
Ahab flicked on to the next slide.
The Ficarras were on the same road, approaching a car. “Them again.”
Another picture. The Ficarras getting in the car. “And again.”
The picture changed a fourth time.
Jess jolted back.
Two blank eyes from a severed head returned her gaze. A wide slash ran across the forehead. Blood ran down the face. The head was tilted back, the muscles holding it cut, bone and sinew exposed, pipes and veins bare and open.
Jess squeezed her eyes shut, and looked away.
“A woman, in case you can’t tell,” said Ahab. “A nice woman. Respectable. Well off. Lots of friends. We know her name. We found her after the Ficarras drove off.”
Jess glowered at the man. “You watched that happen.”
“Not even close.” Ahab shook his head. “Those two stopped. Walked into the trees, and half an hour later walked away. We had no idea she was there. None at all.”
He looked back at the screen, and returned to the slide of two men getting into the car. “But the Ficarras knew.”
She took a deep breath. “The Ficarras.”
He nodded again. “We told the Italians. Anonymously, of course.”
She glanced questioningly at him, partly to avoid looking at the screen.
“They don’t like foreign governments conducting operations in their country. Understandable. We don’t like it in the U.S. either. Touchy subject.” He jerked his thumb toward Morris. “Which is why your minder informed the carabinieri of his impending arrival, instead of turning up, guns blazing.” He took off his glasses. “Or swinging a handbag.”
She screwed up her face. “My minder?” She looked at Morris.
“Someone needs to look after you, Miss Kimball,” said Ahab, his back to her. “You have a disturbing tendency of breaking the rules and getting yourself into trouble, don’t you?”
The screen flashed. Another body appeared, twisted and bloody. Then another. And another.
She looked sideways at the images.
“We have names for some of them,” Ahab said.
She kept her gaze down, avoiding the life-size butchery on the screen. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Mainly, I want you to understand you are meddling in something dangerous. Very dangerous.” He grunted and gestured to the screen. “Given the state of the bodies, it’s not immediately apparent, but more than half these victims were female. The Ficarras have no compassion toward women, Miss Kimball. To say the least.”
She forced herself to look at the screen. “And why are you investigating murders in Italy?”
He turned back to the screen. “The Ficarras have been traveling to the U.S., as you know.”
“So, why not arrest them?”
“On what charge?”
She pointed at the screen. “That.”
“We see the aftermath, but we do not have the evidence, even if we had the power.”
“So get it!”
Ahab scowled. “You’re forgetting Miss Kimball, the FBI does not conduct unauthorized operations outside the U.S. borders.”
“But you’re here.”
“You could say that.”
“What if I do say that? In print?”
The floorboards creaked as Morris shifted his weight.
Ahab grunted again. “Look around. If the State Department wants us to vanish, we’ll be gone.”
He straightened his back. “And I don’t believe you will say anything.” He jerked his thumb at the screen. “You helped kill one of those bastards. Luigi Ficarra. We want the other one. And we want him locked up or dead just as much as you do.”
She narrowed her gaze and frowned.
He nodded. “Believe me, we’re doing our damnedest. If we get so much as a hint of evidence, we will share everything we know with the carabinieri. Your success with Luigi Ficarra in New York has opened up an opportunity for, shall we call it, greater collaboration.”
She nodded.
“But there is the question about what to do with you.”
She leaned forward, scowling. “Do with me?”
“I understand Agent Morris has come to a tacit agreement with you. About the Ficarras. And your involvement.” He took a deep breath. “You’ve agreed to stick to investigative journalism.”
“So?”
“That’s a broad topic.”
She didn’t blink.
“Don’t overstep those boundaries.”
“I promised the Grantlys I’d bring their son home.”
“And we will do that, Miss Kimball. We. Not you. And with luck, you’ll still be alive to see it when it happens.”
She took a deep breath. “So, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to take a holiday. A vacation. Splurge a little. You’re a woman in Rome. Buy dresses. See stuff that’s older than dirt.” He leaned toward her. “Find a swarthy Italian to keep you busy at night.”
She did not reply.
“Do anything you like, Miss Kimball.” He leaned back. “But go near Enzo Ficarra and you’ll leave me with one more slide for my collection.”
She still said nothing.
He looked directly into her eyes. “Leave enforcement to us. Do I make myself clear?”
She squeezed her lips into a thin line, and nodded.
“Good.” Ahab returned to his papers.
Morris jerked his head toward the door, and walked out.
She followed him to the bottom of the stairs. “You could have just told me.”
Morris looked directly into her eyes. “I did tell you, Jess. You just weren’t listening.”
“I did listen.”
“No you didn’t. You chased Luigi Ficarra into that parking garage in New York when I told you not to. I told you we were on the way. That we’d handle it. And by the skin of your teeth, you shot him before he killed you. I told you not to fly to Rome, but you did it anyway. You chased a man you thought was Enzo Ficarra all over the airport yesterday. I told you to stay out of this, that we had it covered. And today, you went to Foto Oggi with the guy’s photo looking to identify him. And you brought the tabloids into this, Jess. Muckrakers.” He raked his hands over his head. “Tell me how in God’s name all of that is listening to me?”
There’s a big difference between simply listening and doing what I believe is best when I’m in the middle of things and you’re not there.
She gestured to the upstairs office where Ahab sat smugly flashing his slides.
“Well, you could have showed me the damn pictures!” She pressed her lips into a single hard line, and swallowed.
“You’ve done your part, Jess. You know that. We know that.” Morris touched her arm. “I gave you my word, and I meant it. I will keep you informed as and when things happen. But you’re no match for these butchers. Don’t you see that?”
She looked at her feet, and nodded. She saw it. But that didn’t mean she would stop.
“Come on.” He kept his hand on her elbow and guided her along. “I have one more thing, then I’ll buy you lunch.”
She followed him deeper into the house. He took a steep staircase down into the cellar, and knocked on an old, but substantial door.
A spy hole opened.
“Morris,” he said.
The hole closed, and the door opened. A short man gestured for them to enter. Behind him was a counter, and behind that was a mass of smooth black metal. Rifles, pistols, submachine guns. They lined shelves, and hung from the walls, glinting under fluorescent lighting.
“Fred, this is Jess Kimball. Jess, Fred Romano.”
“Good to meet you, Jess.” They shook hands.
Romano pulled a box from the shelves and dumped a gun onto the counter. “We use the PPK over here.” He thumped a box of ammunition beside it. Morris pocketed them both.
“And,” he placed a small black object on the counter. It looked like a cardboard cutout in the shape of a gun.
“Heizer Double Tap. For emergencies.” Romano picked it up, wrapping his hands around either end. “Open like so.” The tiny barrel pivoted forward. He shoved bullets in the gun’s two barrels. “Nine millimeter. And…” He turned the gun over, and pulled two rounds from the bottom of the grip, “Spares.”
The Heizer had two short hexagonal barrels, and the sides appeared completely flat. Jess reached for the tiny object.
Romano moved the gun out of her reach.
Morris took the Heizer. “Thanks.”
“Jess, are you a trainee?”
“Civilian,” Morris answered before she could say she was a reporter.
Romano scowled. “We don’t allow—”
“No problem.” Morris grabbed Jess’s elbow. “We’re leaving.”
He steered her out of the room. Romano slammed the door and latched bolts in place behind them.
They left the building through the same buzzing doors, the same scuffed white hallway, and same blank staring camera.
Morris picked up the pace, going vaguely back in the direction they’d come. Again, Jess struggled to keep up.
“Listen, next time you want to go jogging, let me know and I’ll wear the right shoes.”
He nodded and slowed slightly. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“You’ve been here before?”
He shrugged.
“Right. So, how come you know this place, and those people?”
“I don’t. But we connected through channels.” They emerged onto a wide street. He turned left. “When we realized you were on Flight 12, we asked the carabinieri to pick you up at the airport. They got held up in traffic.”
She grunted.
“Anyway. Want American?”
She frowned.
“To eat.”
She nodded and they sped along at his usual pace for a couple of blocks before she said, “You know, I was pretty visible at the airport.”
“You could say that.”
